Technical resignation is a bridge, not a guillotine, says Karnataka High Court

File Photo of Karnataka High Court

The Karnataka High Court has slammed the state government for not paying pension to a retired university professor even two years after his retirement only because it hesitated over the wrong question of whether he was entitled to pension under the old or new system.

Upholding that the retired law professor is entitled to pension under the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), the court ordered the government to pay the pension within eight weeks of the delay with interest at 6% per annum from the due date. Meanwhile, the court warned that failure to comply within the extended deadline will result in penal interest at 12% per annum and legal costs of ₹1,000 crore to the government.

A Division Bench comprising Justice M. Nagaprasanna and Justice Hema Kulkarni passed the entire order dismissing the government’s appeal against the March 2026 judgment of a single judge, which had declared retired professor Chidananda Reddy S. Patil entitled to pension under the OPS.

Mr. Patil was initially appointed as a Lecturer at Karnataka University (KU), Dharwad on 14 March 1996 and was subsequently promoted to Associate Professor and Principal of Sir Siddappa Kambali Law College, a constituent college of KU. In 2013, he applied for the post of professor at Karnataka State Law University (KSLU), Hubballi through the appropriate channel as per government rules.

After his selection, he submitted a “technical resignation” under Rule 252(b) of the Karnataka Civil Services Rules (KCSR), which facilitates transfer of service benefits when he joins another state-run organization. However, after his retirement on 31 December 2024, the government denied him OPS benefits, citing a clause in his 2013 appointment order that stipulated that his service at KSLU would be subject to the new Contributory Pension Plan (NPS) scheme, even though KSLU had already clarified in 2021 that he was entitled to OPS under the Act.

Rejecting the government’s argument that a “technical resignation” did not automatically preserve his pension rights from his previous employment, the Bench said that KU had accepted his resignation under Article 252(b) and he was relieved of his last pay certificate to protect his salary at the new institution, KSLU.

The bench described the government’s interpretation as an “administrative misreading of the law” that sought to “wipe out nearly 17 years of Mr. Patil’s earlier service to KU” while asserting that “a technical resignation is a bridge between two appointments; it is not, by its very nature, a guillotine designed to sever all the benefits of the service rendered to her”.

“What the law preserves cannot extinguish a contractual arrangement,” the Bench said, adding that “statutory rights are not commodities which can be exchanged at the boundary of employment.”

Published – 13 Nov 2026 22:55 IST